where do we go (when we walk on light)
by abbyli
Summary: Daryl goes missing on a run with only his crossbow recovered. Beth never stops believing that he is alive and coming back to her. au


**entitled: **where do we go (when we walk on light)

**summary: **Daryl goes missing on a run, only his bow recovered. Beth never stops believing that he is alive and coming back to her.

**pairing/characters: **beth/daryl, some rick/michonne, carol/tyreese (mentioned), maggie

**rating: **high t for heavy swearing

**disclaimer: **I do not own the Walking Dead or its characters.

**notes: **This will only be a threeshot, no longer. Daryl and Beth are in an established relationship by now, her having survived at the hospital. This AU type fic came to me when I saw a drawing showing Daryl and Beth's wings. I thought perhaps, what if Daryl was thought dead and only his bow recovered? What exactly would Beth do?

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'where do we go when we walk on light  
who do you call at the edge of night  
carry me close like the teardrops in your eyes  
all i can give you is memories  
carry them with you and i'll never leave'  
**-'don't let me go', raign**

**.**

**.**

_She gazes at the crossbow in Rick's hands. The string is broken and the trigger is dented. Swallowing softly, she looks up at her friend. _

"_Is he dead?" she breathes, fighting the heat that is rising behind her eyes. _

_Rick looks down at her sadly, the crossbow trembling slightly in his hands. _

"_He's just gone."_

**.**

**.**

**.**

Dawn's early light comes too damn early.

The small alarm clock blares it's tinny bells, waking Daryl all too suddenly. He lets out a grunt as he reaches over and slaps the top of the clock, silencing it's annoying bell. He slips back down in the too small bed, shifting so his body curls more around the woman beside him.

"What time is it?" Beth asks, cracking open one eyelid.

"Half-pas seven," Daryl murmurs, resting his chin on her shoulder.

"What time do you meet the others for the run?"

"Nine."

Beth groans softly, pulling one hand from under the blankets and taking his much larger one. Both of her hands always fit cleanly inside one of his fists and it always amazed her just how right that felt.

Despite how much it would hurt if she ever lost him.

"I don't want ya to go out on tha run today," she says suddenly, causing Daryl to shift more behind her. She rolls onto her back and she meets his confused eyes.

"What makes ya say that?" he asks.

Beth shrugs a shoulder. "Yer gonna think I'm stupid."

"Depends," Daryl says. Beth laughs softly, slapping his bare shoulder before her smile fades. Daryl leans closer, so close that his breath is tickling the side of her face. "Beth, how long have ya known me?"

She gives him a quizzical look before she answers. "A while. Why?"

"And when have I ever let myself get run over by walkers?"

"Well, there was the time down by the river and then there was the time -" Beth begins to count it out on her fingers. Daryl growls playfully before reaching for her hands.

"Shut up, you know what I mean," he chuckles. "I'll be fine. So whatever motherhen thang ye've got going on, let it go."

"Yeah, well," Beth says, her eyes focused on a point past Daryl's head. When he reaches down to kiss her, she moves away and jumps out of bed so quickly that he nearly tumbles to the floor. Before he can muster up a good complaint, Beth is too and back from their small chest of drawers with a small knife in her hands. "At least take this."

Daryl clampers to his feet to face her, his dark eyes taking in the knife. "What - Beth, why are ya giving me yer knife?"

Beth swallows before pushing the covered weapon in his direction. "Put it in yer boot. Just humor me."

Daryl rolls his eyes but complies, allowing her to shift the dagger into his palm. His fingers close around it before she pulls her own away, their hands briefly brushing. The heat of her skin reminds him just how alive she is and just how damn lucky he is.

"Okay, I'll humor ya," he says with a smirk. "Now we still have a half hour so why don't we -" With a devilish look that she has come to adore, he cocks his head back towards the bed.

Not that she wouldn't comply.

* * *

She watches him place the small knife right on the inside of his clunky boot before lacing them up.

She knows she's being ridiculous. That he and Rick and the others will be back in a few hours and everything will be fine.

But after everything they had gone through, absolutely everything that they had survived, she couldn't help but be afraid. Last night she had awoken in a cold sweat, the last dredges of her nightmare slipping away. Her nightmare of losing the man that laid beside her. She couldn't even fathom the thought.

Daryl had been oblivious to it all, sleeping on while she crawled out of their cramped bed and lumbered down the hallway to the tiny bathroom that they shared with at least twenty other people.

Their new safe haven was an abandoned elementary school. Rick had discovered the school when he had gone out on a run alone and well, it was perfect. Yes, the classrooms were now bedrooms, filled with cots and tiny chests of drawers and whatnot but it was enough. They were all together and for now, they were safe.

Four months had passed since that horrible afternoon in the hospital. She still had the scars from the beatings she had taken from Dawn and she doubted they would ever fade.

That afternoon, she had tried to rescue Noah and failed. She had taken a gamble on her own life because she couldn't even fathom the fact of someone like Dawn still being around, still having that kind of power. She knew it was stupid, as Daryl so cheerfully reminded her for days on end after it was over. But she had had to try.

When she went for Dawn's jugular, the woman's fist came up and she found the barrel of her revolver pressed up against her chin. The force of it cracked a few of her back teeth and caused her to begin to spit blood. And then the gun went off.

It happened so damn quickly.

Noah had reacted, coming in front of her and knocking the gun away but - but the bullet had found it's home.

There was a yell of agony and anger and suddenly another blast and Dawn was falling. She was falling and that was it.

Noah's body was being pushed off of her and everything was just a damn blur. She feels familiar calloused hands on her, inspecting her face and chest and then there is this relieved sob that rings out above.

"_She's alive." _

But Noah wasn't.

The bullet had pierced his skull and that's why Daryl had panicked so much. There was so much blood all over the place. So much blood...and her friend was dead.

For nearly a month after that horror was over, she walked in a fog. Surviving that was unlike anything she had ever survived before and the fact that her friend had died when she was supposed too -

And Daryl was there. He was there reminding her that she so alive. Pissing her off, arguing with her at every chance that he got over the most ridiculous of things - that was Daryl. Her Daryl.

Pretty soon it came down to a choice. Either deck him or kiss him.

She chose the latter. All history from there.

* * *

"What are ya thinking?"

His gruff voice pulls her out of her thoughts. Beth blinks, watching as Daryl gets to his feet and approaches her perch on the rickety wooden desk chair from the corner of the room.

She manages a smile for him, accepting his hands in her own. "About you," she says. "And what we're gonna do when ya get back."

Daryl chuckles, leaning down to kiss her. "Then I'll hurry back."

She smiles into the kiss, reaching up and wrapping her arms around his neck. "Y'all come back safe and in one piece, ya hear me?"

"Yes ma'am."

With one last kiss, he's gone.

* * *

She has yet to go on a run. Ever since what had happened, she doubted Daryl would actually let her. The one time that she had tried, he had threatened to hogtie her and leave her in their shared room until he got back from the run. That argument had ended with her telling him to go screw himself and him going on the run instead of her.

They fought constantly over the silliest of things. But those fights never lasted long and always led to some great making up.

And it worked. All of it, the kind of relationship that they had - it just worked.

As Beth watches the van pull from the parking lot of the school, she can't help the nervous jump of her heart.

"He'll be fine," comes a voice from her left. Beth turns blue eyes to her sister, feeling the touch of her hand on her elbow. "Daryl's a survivor."

"I know," Beth says. She doesn't even question how Maggie even knew because her sister had always been able to read her like a book. "But I'm still afraid."

"I am too," Maggie says softly before she turns on her heel and goes back inside.

Beth sighs, moving her shoulder a bit to a more comfortable position against the side of the pole that she is leaning against. Her eyes watch the van as it continues it's travel down the dusty abandoned road and disappears around the corner.

She stays there until they return.

* * *

Rick is not one to butt into other people's relationships. After the drama that had cloaked his own situation with Lori and Shane, that was enough to make him let everything blow up around him as long as it didn't do a bounce onto him.

He watches Daryl's body language as he drives. The rigid way he sits in the seat, the way his hands grip the wheel - he can't help but notice all of that.

He leans to his right. "Not to sound like a shrink but everything okay with you and Beth?"

Daryl glances in the rearview mirror at their dozing companions. Glenn slumps in his seat, his head resting against the dirty glass window. Michonne's awake but she's not all there, gazing bleary eyed out the window.

"She was all worried this morning. I think she had a bad dream or somethin'," Daryl says.

"What kind of dream?" Rick asks.

"I dunno, she wouldn't tell me. But it was obvious about me. Somethin' happenin' to me."

"Oh."

Rick can't say a damn word about that because - well because he's had those dreams.

And bad things have always happened.

* * *

A small town called Tipper.

He could tell that in it's day, it was a quaint little place with white picket fences and everyone knowing each other's name.

Now, it's a ghost town. Not a soul or an undead in sight.

"I don't like this," Rick says. He leans around the back of his seat and gently bumps Michonne in the knee, bringing her out of her doze. "Hey, wake up." Glenn starts, swiveling dark eyes towards their leader. "It's too damn quiet," he says. "There's a store on the edge of the block. We'll hit that first and then we'll move from house to house. Let's make this quick, 'kay?"

And it all goes downhill from there.

As soon as they enter the store, five walkers come out of nowhere. Glenn takes care of one with his knife while Michonne lops off the head of another with her sword. The other one manages to get a grip on her, his teeth grazing her throat. Rick's gun goes off and the walker falls.

"Are you bit?!" Rick demands quickly. Michonne barely has time to shake her head before the other walker begins to rise up. Daryl fires his crossbow, the arrow flying through the air and just grazing the top of Rick's curls before finding it's home in the walker's forehead. Glenn quickly annihilates the last one and then it's over.

"Everyone all right?" Michonne asks once the smoke clears.

"Yeah," Rick says. "Let's not split up. Daryl, you come with me and we'll take the back of the store. Michonne and Glenn, get whatever you can and start bringing it out to the fan."

Michonne and Glenn nod and head off down one aisle as Rick heads down another, Daryl following him.

Just as they turn a corner, they hear a gunshot. Daryl jumps slightly, feeling just a bit more shaky than he normally would. He finds himself wishing Beth had kept her mouth shut and kept that damn dream to herself.

He feels the edging of the knife cover rubbing against his ankle as he walks. That knife, she carried it when they were on the run together in what seemed like a lifetime ago. Somehow she had gotten it back after Dawn had kidnapped her.

Just the thought of Dawn made his blood boil. Even though he had blown her away in those horrible moments when he thought Beth was dead, when he felt Beth's weight in his arms - felt the injuries that Dawn had inflicted upon her - there were no words for the rage.

He wonders if Rick is taking what he told him to heart and that's why they are not separated.

The next fifteen minutes go all right. He and Rick find probably a hundred boxes of spaghetti and macaroni, along with forty cans of tomato sauce.

"This'll make the kids happy," Rick chuckles as he throws the boxes into his duffel.

"Hell, this'll make our women happy," Daryl smirks.

After the battle at the hospital, Rick and Michonne had gotten closer. Her bond with Carl was part of it but - there was something more. They hadn't officially declared it a relationship but everyone else had. One thing Daryl noticed though is that his friend smiled a hell of a lot more.

"We've got canned vegetables over here and bottled water!" Sasha calls from a couple of aisles away. "Shit!"

A snarl ripples the air, followed by another gunshot. The spaghetti forgotten, the two men run around the corner, weapons drawn.

The snarls are coming quicker and the sight that greets them - has no words.

Glenn and Michonne are almost encased in walkers, Michonne whirling her sword around so quickly that it's just a blur of silver. Glenn manages to push one off of him, sliding his knife right up through his jaw and touching his brain.

"Go!" Michonne yells over the throng. "Go!"

Daryl begins firing his arrows, one right after the other. He takes out the two that have got their slimy fingers wrapped around Michonne's upper arms and he reaches in and pulls her out and giving her a shove towards the door.

And they're running. He hears Glenn's footfalls behind him, not knowing how the kid got away and not really caring. They're getting out of there.

They slam through the double doors, the cool morning wind whipping at their faces. Glenn is the first one to the van. Michonne follows close behind, stopping to see where Daryl and Rick had gotten too.

Rick finally tumbles through the doors, Daryl right behind him. He turns and quickly fires one last arrow and a final walker falls down dead.

"Ya all right?" he asks his friend.

"M'fine," Daryl snarls. "C'mon, let's go."

Rick nods in consent, turning to head back towards the van. And then the gun goes off.

"Hit the deck!"

Another shot is fired over their heads, shattering the one window of the store. A walker falls out at the waist, his head split open. Rick turns, firing a returning shot to where the previous one came from.

More walkers spill from the now open window, walking their dangerous walk towards the four survivors.

"Come on!" Glenn yells from beside the van.

Daryl gives Rick a shove, nearly falling down in the process. "Get goin'"

The walkers are coming again. Coming fast.

As Rick breaks away from Daryl, he yells out. "Daryl!"

But Daryl's surrounded. Gone from view.

It has been pushed into Rick's brain that when someone is surrounded by walkers and whatever other monsters there are, you have to leave them behind so you yourself can survive.

But right now, he can't.

Oh, god, he just can't.

He pushes his way in, using the butt of his revolver to break the skull of one walker before firing a bullet into the head of another. There's a sick slicing sound and the head of a walker falls to the ground with a wet slap. Rick barely has time to acknowledge Michonne before he keeps pushing in.

"Daryl!" he shouts, ignoring the way his voice cracks. "Daryl!"

Michonne takes out a few more walkers, the blast of Glenn's gun ringing in his ears.

And then -

Oh, god, and then -

There is another gunshot from above.

The last surviving walkers retreat, falling back.

There's nothing left except blood. A lot of blood.

And Daryl's crossbow, laying mangled and broken in the muck.

* * *

She's still there on the chilled concrete steps when the van reappears.

She forces herself to remain seated on those steps as the van pulls right up into the courtyard.

Rick is driving. Why is Rick driving?

She then rises to her feet, moving slowly towards the van. Rick climbs out first, holding - no, _cradling _something in his hands.

She barely notices Michonne and Glenn as she moves towards Rick, feeling like the ghost that she knows she should be.

As she gets closer, she sees it.

His crossbow.

Daryl's beloved bow.

Oh, god...

Oh, _god..._

Rick meets her in the middle and she tries so hard to ignore the tears in his eyes.

She gazes at the crossbow in Rick's hands. The string is broken and the trigger is dented. Swallowing softly, she looks up at her friend.

"Is he dead?" she breathes, fighting the heat that is rising behind her eyes.

Rick looks down at her sadly, the crossbow trembling slightly in his hands.

"He's just gone."

* * *

Maggie follows her back to her room.

She feels her sister's presence behind her as she stands in the center of the room, _their _room.

She doesn't move. Not a muscle.

But then her hands begin to shake. The crossbow trembles in her grip and she almost drops it. She lets it fall onto the bed so quickly it's like her hands have been burned.

And maybe they have.

Because she could still feel him. She could feel him all around her.

"I don't feel it," she whispers, her back still to Maggie.

"That's shock," Maggie says.

"No it's not," Beth says softly. "I should be able to feel it. To know."

"Beth -" Maggie begins but the blonde cuts her off, whirling around so quickly that Maggie takes a step back.

"No, Maggie!" Beth snaps. "Don't say it! D'nt give me that five stages of grief bullshit because that's not what this is. You don't know! Your husband came back today! Mine din't!"

Oh, god.

What the hell did she just say?

Maggie stares at her, her green eyes wide and moist with tears. She reaches out tentatively, like she is expecting Beth to twist away but she doesn't. The younger woman almost collapses into her arms, heavy sobs shaking her body so violently that she knows she will be sore in the morning.

This pain is different because it's nothing she's ever felt before.

Maybe the five stages of grief do set in here but there is one stage that she will never reach.

Acceptance.

Because it wasn't true.

Daryl wasn't dead.

**.**

* * *

**To have that said to Beth, pertaining to Daryl - "...just gone..." and to have Rick say it - I think I shall throw myself off a cliff now. **

**Anyway, of course, Daryl is not dead. We shall see where he is in the next chapter, probably close to the end. And Beth? Beth's got a bit of a journey to go on because right now, she is truly alone. But she will find him. She will always find him. **

**Review? **


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